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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22780270">You Promised</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dawniebb/pseuds/Dawniebb'>Dawniebb</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Lunar Chronicles - Marissa Meyer</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Platonic Relationship, i love my emotional support brotp, in which thorne sees cinder before she wakes up and its s a d, post-winter angst</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 15:54:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,071</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22780270</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dawniebb/pseuds/Dawniebb</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>And even if now it hurts, Thorne feels like it’s the right thing to say, and the words come smoothly out of his mouth, almost against his will:</p><p>“You promised you’d let me help you pick out a tiara after we were done saving the world.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Linh Cinder &amp; Carswell Thorne</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>59</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>You Promised</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>It randomly came to my mind that I’ve never published any tlc fanfic so I figured that had to change and I ended up writing angsty crap about Cinder and Thorne lmao BECAUSE THEY ARE MY BROTP AND I WOULD ABSOLUTELY DIE FOR THEM. IN THIS HOUSE WE STAN PLATONIC BOY-GIRL RELATIONSHIPS.</p><p>I hope you like it as much as I do &lt;3 I made it with love even though it’s hella sad.</p><p>It’s post-Winter :3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He’s the last one to enter the room the day they allow them to. Not because he doesn’t want to see her, but because he’s too scared to do it.</p><p>Seeing Cress for the first time after the throne room had already been hard enough, so for a minute, he didn’t want to imagine what seeing <em>her</em> would be like.</p><p>The moment when he decides to come into the room is actually very odd, because Thorne’s head is all scrambled up and blurry as if his thoughts were surrounded by fog.</p><p>Yet, he knows one (only one) senseless thing: He loves himself enough to avoid seeing her, but he loves <em>her</em> enough to choose not leaving her alone in a moment like this.</p><p>When the door opens right before his eyes, he finds the will to walk behind the android due to pure survival instinct. Being really honest, Thorne is too tired to have an android voice (One that is not Iko’s) telling him to follow along, as if he didn’t know what he must do in situations like these.</p><p>As he walks, he absently stares at his feet, lost in thoughts that are not there, as his lungs are filled with air that smells like cleanliness and hospital (Hospitals have a characteristic smell, don’t they?). The walk through the hall feels infinite even if he’s aware it doesn’t last for more than 10 seconds.</p><p>Then again, his mind becomes a confusing and contradicting mess, because one moment he just wants to get to the bed already, but when the android stops, he wants to run and hide. Forever. Or at least, being less dramatic, until this whole situation is over and they’re all okay again.</p><p>If such thing happens one day, obviously. Thorne hopes it does.</p><p>The medical android says something related to the minutes he has before it comes back to get him out, but he doesn’t listen. He already knows it’s 15 minutes.</p><p>Or was it 5?</p><p>Well, he doesn’t know and he doesn’t care either. He’ll just leave when the android comes back.</p><p>Then it hits him, and his stomach turns into a knot. When the medical android leaves him alone, Thorne feels as if he weren’t alone just in this room, but in the whole galaxy. He’s so afraid of looking below that it makes him dizzy, a feeling similar to vertigo.</p><p>But because, <em>just because</em> he’s Carswell Thorne, he finds the strength to do it.</p><p>And even if he previously knew she wouldn’t be staring back at him, Thorne feels disappointed and empty anyways. The knot in his stomach loosens and disappears, but instead, it moves to his throat, which to his particular opinion is even worse.</p><p>She’s not in a suspension tank. Not anymore.</p><p>She’s laid there in a kind of comfortable looking bed; her man-made organs being so unstable they don’t work on their own; her body supported by machines; her mouth opening so the tube that fills her lungs with oxygen can fit in; her tanned skin looking so weak, pale and dry it hurts; her eyes shut close; Her hair invading some of the space in the pillow; her wounds looking a little better, but still open, accompanied by bruises that look like galaxies; a constant “beep” that marks the rhythm of her heartbeats.</p><p>Princess Selene Blackburn is unconscious in that bed. Luna and the world hanging by both her flesh and mechanical hands, and her life hanging by a thread.</p><p>Well, she’s Selene Blackburn for the rest of the Moon and the Earth.</p><p>For Thorne, she will always be Cinder.</p><p>Linh Cinder. Crazy Cyborg Fugitive.</p><p>The same person that broke out of New Beijing’s prison with him and the one who would roll her eyes every time he opened his mouth; the first one to join the newly acquired Rampion crew.</p><p>Maybe she had appeared in his life for a reason and was meant to stay for a very limited time; maybe her only mission at least in this life was to fix the mess her ancestors had left behind and Winter would be the new Queen; maybe she wouldn’t get any better because there was nothing else anybody could do.</p><p>Maybe they’ll just have to face the facts and find resignation once she’s gone.</p><p>Except, Thorne knows he’s not willing to do that.</p><p>Because, in the first place, he doesn’t want to let her go. He doesn’t care about the fact that making her stay requires denying to put an end to her physical suffering, which makes him indeed a selfish person.</p><p>So what?</p><p>He’s always been a selfish person anyway. At least now he’s doing it for a cause he considers good.</p><p>With a deep breath and a blink, Thorne manages to find what’s left of his emotional strength, and his mouth curves itself into a forced smile as he sits on the mattress, close enough to feel her weight sinking it.</p><p>He keeps breathing steadily, and he tries to find the most creative nickname he can give her in case she’s listening, but nothing comes out. Nor in his brain or through his mouth.</p><p>But still, Thorne holds her hand, the mechanical one, as if doing that he would be able to transfer her some of his energy to make her body function again.</p><p>That doesn’t happen, of course, but it does make the memories flow through his mind and, from all of that, he manages to rescue one very specific thing.</p><p>And even if now it hurts, Thorne feels like it’s the right thing to say, and the words come smoothly out of his mouth, almost against his will:</p><p>“You promised you’d let me help you pick out a tiara after we were done saving the world.”</p><p>But, as he thought it would happen, Cinder stays immobile. Quiet. Asleep. Like a ghost. Like the little girl he saw at Michelle Benoit’s house, so unrecognizable it made his blood boil with rage, with the only difference this time it’s not “Who would do this to a child” what crosses his mind.</p><p>This time it’s “How <b>dare</b> she do this to his best friend?”</p><p>And with his blood boiling through his veins, just like his eyes are burning as if they were filled with flames instead of tears, Thorne speaks to her again.</p><p>“Now you gotta promise me that you won’t die.” His hand tightens around hers.</p><p>“Please.”</p>
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